FOX SPORTS DIGITAL PAGE VIEWS DOWN 88% SINCE PIVOT TO ALL VIDEO

Fox Sports (FOXA) laid off +/- 20 writers back in June, announcing they would be eliminating the writing staff to invest in more lucrative video production. For the first time since that announcement, digital page view figures have been released. According to Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated (TWX), Fox Sports’ websites lost 88% of its website traffic between the end of the written era, May 27-June 25 (143.9 million views), and start of the all video era, August 19-September 17 (16.7 million views). It is worth noting for comparison purposes that ESPN had 83.4 million unique digital viewers during the month of August.

Howie Long-Short: I’m going to reserve judgement on the pivot until Q3 financials are released. It’s entirely possible that the company is running lean, having dumped +/- 20 salaries, while generating more ad revenue from the video content. Of course, advertisers aren’t going to continue paying high ad rates if the company has no page views.

Fan Marino: Jamie Horowitz, who loves himself a hot take and was behind the pivot, is no longer running things at Fox Sports. Company President and CEO Eric Shanks said at the time of Horowitz’s dismissal that the company would continue to “execute our playbook”. As a fan, I’m booing the play calls and asking for a new offensive coordinator. Give me high-quality in-depth investigative reporting, not the most outrageous comments a carnival barker can shout on video.